If you’re looking for a “difficult” builder, Planet Zoo ain’t it. Guest opinions are weirdly arbitrary, as is cash flow. Maybe not on the management side, which is still a thin and easily manipulated veneer. Bottom lineįor all its problems-and there are many- Planet Zoo is one of the most satisfying builders I’ve ever played. Buy a replacement.Īnd no matter what, keep building.
#Planet zoo mobile how to
My keepers forget how to feed the animals and one starves to death? Shed a tear. Rain slows my frame rate to a crawl? Wait it out. My habitat walls keep melting into dust after only a year or two? Grit my teeth. Franchise Mode kicks me to the main menu? Sigh. Oh, and Franchise Mode is perpetually online, which is fine except when Frontier’s servers boot me from my zoo for no reason. Running a habitat parallel to a path is a matter of eyeballing it and eventually saying “Well, close enough,” which is less than ideal.
I also find it frustrating there’s no universal grid you can toggle on and off. The pathing system is still every bit as awkward as it was in Planet Coaster, especially when you want to do anything extravagant like tunnel under a river. Planet Zoo could use a few interface passes, as it takes far too many clicks to (for instance) figure out what continent and biome an animal is from, then filter the “Nature” tab so it only shows plants from said continent and biome, then place the plants, then double-check that you’ve placed enough foliage to satisfy the animal, and so forth. I’m likewise fond of giraffes and their affinity for people, the way they crane their necks up towards crowds on an elevated walkway.Īre there annoyances? Absolutely. I’ve yet to grow tired of coming across bears 50 feet up a tree trunk, looking out over the horizon. But other times it’s surprisingly endearing. It doesn’t always work out, and sometimes you find a wolf swimming in place forever or some such. Planet Zoo puts a lot of emphasis-as it should-on the animals and making them seem realistic. It’s a treat to sit back and watch this clockwork zoo operate as well. I’ve spent hours on a single enclosure, trying to establish better sightlines, sculpting rivers and hills so that the animals are herded towards the glass and the waiting guests, placing rocks and foliage to mask the zookeepers who help stagehand this elaborate drama. That’s the hook for me here, the interplay between designing a great exhibit for guests and a great habitat for the animals. Or in Planet Zoo, for people who want to lay out an ambitious grizzly bear pen complete with a mountain, a faux-cave, and a waterfall. It’s for people who want to place every trash can and every tree and every rock, who want to spend hours beautifying a reptile house or maybe just a toilet. Planet Zoo, like Planet Coaster before, is an incredible construction kit. Still, I’m having a great time sidestepping the issue by building a massive zoo with everything in it. The current implementation is bizarre, and undercuts what should be one of Planet Zoo’s best ideas. That sort of Haussmann-like renovation is par for the course in builders, but Franchise Mode seems designed precisely to avoid such situations. Laying out a gondola was proving needlessly difficult and I was having a hard time keeping my staff’s assigned work areas organized. After spending 12 to 15 hours on my first, I realized I’d backed myself into a corner in terms of some late-game options. Of course, that also means you’re going to screw up the first time. It’s manageable though, with most of the nonfunctional items hidden until after you’ve laid down a foundation and done some research. Starting a new zoo is still intimidating, presented with acres upon acres of empty land to fill. You can research new themes to decorate your zoo, new staff facilities to accommodate your growing employee pool, new barriers to better protect your guests from your animals (and vice versa), and so on. You start with a limited construction kit and limited funds, then gradually expand both your zoo and your options.
Positioned between Career and Creative, Franchise Mode is a slightly structured sandbox. Twice-or three times now, if you count the beta. You could play with a restricted toolbox in someone else’s zoo…or you could just go make your own.Īnd make your own, I did. The prefab zoos Frontier includes for each mission are inspiring, sure, but unlocking all 14 will take a lot of patience. I did dabble in the Career early on, but quickly tired of going through the motions of what felt like an extended tutorial. It’s a lot of hours, most of them spent in Franchise Mode.
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